In the spring of 2005, I signed up for my 2nd German research class at BYU. I’d completed a semester-long class in German paleography, where I learned to read the old German handwriting and documents. Not knowing for sure what I was getting into, but confident that I wanted to learn, I signed up for this upper division research course with Professor Roger Minert.
On the first day of class we were each handed a slip of paper with the name of a person who was born in Germany and who died in America. My slip of paper said Peter Heinrich Bastert, born 10 April 1833 in Bielefeld, Westphalia, Germany and died 18 October 1882 in Quincy, Illinois.
My semester-long assignment was to find and tell his story.
On the afternoon of that first day, I remember going to the BYU Library to look at other Immigrant Case Studies from students in other semesters to see what they looked like. I sad there, in the library, and cried. I had NO IDEA how to do German research and I had no idea where to begin.
In the weeks that followed, I poured my whole heart and soul into this project. I prayed a lot and followed hunches. In class I learned where to look for what kinds records. I spent hours and hours in the Salt Lake Family History Library cranking microfilm reader knobs and looking at microfilms, searching for the Bastert family and their ancestors. I collected 100s of names and at the end of the semester, my project was published.
You can read it here. (It really is interesting!)
Immigrant Case Study, Bastert Family
In the almost 20 years since I met this Bastert family, I’ve been contacted by several family members now living (both in Germany and in the States), who have found digital copies of my work. Because of this research project, American Bastert family members have connected to German family members. And thanks to Facebook and messaging, I have gotten to know several family members and we have become friends. I felt honored when they declared me to be an honorary family member.
A few months ago I learned that members of the Illinois Bastert family were traveling to Germany for a family reunion in Bielefeld. Volker Bastert, a German cousin, invited me to join them. I was Thrilled.
In the following posts, you will learn about this reunion, the places we visited and the experiences we had together. I’ve always felt like there was some sort of Divine intervention that happened to bring us all together. I felt that again this weekend in Bielefeld as we met in person for the first time.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 